Pride is instilled. It's what we carry with us every day of our lives.

“Live On Purpose” Challenge Day 2: Becoming the Person You Are Meant to Be

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. ~E.E. Cummings

One of the most powerful things any of us can do is dare to live up to our fullest potential. In a society where being different is frowned upon, where you are ridiculed, or made fun of for going against what some may deem as “societal norms”, it takes a lot of courage to go against what everyone else is doing and do your own thing. Living a life that is of our own design, while it can be challenging, is the best thing you can ever do for yourself. But in order to live your best life and in order to become the person you are meant to be you have to understand who you are at your deepest, core level. Who you are is not your job, your name or the labels you have given yourself through the years. Who you are is underneath all of that.

We begin to find and become ourselves when we start paying attention to who we are right now and how we got to be this way. Most of us give way too much weight to how others perceive us. Thereby allowing what others think of us to outweigh what we think of ourselves. Not only is this not beneficial to our our self image it contributes to the angst of not being fully present in our own lives. In short, we become fixated with how people perceive us, how to get more of the things that we think will make us happy, and with all the other non consequential things we have convinced ourselves are important. So the real issue is how do we gently stop being who we aren’t? How do we relieve ourselves of the false fronts of people-pleasing and affectation, the obsessive need for power and security, the backpack of old pain, and the psychic Spanx that keeps us smaller and contained?

Therefore, in order to discover who we want to be we have to start by asking ourselves “Who am I right now?”

I want you to think about that in a very broad sense. It’s not about being a writer or an athlete, or any career title. But instead thinking about what kind of person you want to become?

Do you want to exude confidence? Do you want to inspire? Do you want to win? Or will you settle for being a person who always gives up, a person who is easily defeated, and a person who never follows through? Who we choose to be influences everything we do and how we show up in the world.

If you’re a person who never gives up then everything you set your mind to do you will achieve. That type of thinking, attitude, belief or whatever you want to call it can be applied to any area of your life: career, family, relationships, business, etc. Many times we subscribe to other’s opinions of us. Maybe someone in your life at one time has said to you “you will never amount too much” or maybe they’ve said to you “you’re not smart enough” or “you’re not pretty/good looking enough” or “ambitious enough.”

Maybe they’ve told you “you’re never going to do that because you’re too lazy” or because “you never finish what you start”. If we hear those types of things enough times from people who we believe love and care about us then we slowly begin to internalize them and we eventually start believing them. Until you get clear on who you are and who you want to be you will always doubt yourself and always doubt your abilities.

In order for you to start getting clear on who you want to be I encourage you to start thinking about who you are right now. How do you show up in the world? How do you respond to challenges and things that make you uncomfortable? Do you give up? Are you easily defeated? If so, ask yourself why? What experiences in your life have influenced your defeated attitude? Be honest with yourself because once you can identify the root cause you can begin to do the healing and corrective work necessary to break free from that attitude. If you had to describe yourself to someone who did not know you what would you tell them?

Once you’ve done all of the above I then want you to think about who you want to be? How does who you want to be differ from who you are right now? I then want you to compare the two. If the two match then you are clear on who you are and just need to continue living in your truth. However, if there is a gap between who you are now and who you want to be then you have some serious self-work to do. I want you to do a self-assessment and identify the areas where there is a disconnect between who you are and who you want to be. Once you do that I want you to make a list and identify the things you need to do in order to get you from where you are to where you want to be. It is our purpose to find purpose. It is our purpose to simply align with who we are, what we love to do, our talents and our potential, and then live.

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2016 Voices of the Year Honoree

Nancy Arroyo Ruffin

About Me:

Nancy Arroyo Ruffin is a writer, mama, wife, and motivational speaker. Her work has been cited and published in various online magazines and literary journals such as Duende Literary Journal, Poets & Writers, For Harriet, Elephant Journal, CentroVOICES, Moms Magazine, MUTHA Magazine, The Manifest-Station, among others. She is 2016 Voices of The Year Award honoree and a 2014 International Latino Book Award recipient for her sophomore poetry collection, Letters To My Daughter.